Bruce Wiseman April 26, 2020.
This is a short summary of the key facts associated with the virus and the pandemic. It is a summary of a MUCH LARGER detailed report on what happened, which can be accessed at the end of this summary.
It is not skewed by political partisan ship or charges and counter-charges. Just FACTS.
You have permission to forward this summary and you have permission to forward the much larger report, which, as noted, can be accessed and download via the link at the end of this summary.
Nothing like this has ever happened before. Is important that we understand exactly what did occur so we can prevent a reoccurrence.
Lately there have been discussions as to whether the virus escaped from the lab in Wuhan. So far there is no evidence to prove this. Another study pointed out that at this point the Type A version of the virus which appears to have been the first version came from the Guandong province and not the Wuhan province. There is a lab there too. The bottom line is no one knows if this was caused by a lab accident or not. Whether it came from a lab or not is of less importance than how it was handled. Viruses occur in nature, escape by accident or can be deliberately spread by terrorists. That this can happen is simply a fact of life. What is more important is how this gets handled once it occurs.
To bring some clarity into the confusions and accusations in regards to the COVID-19 debacle it is time to focus on the facts. There are politically motivated accusations and countries accuse each other. None of that is going anywhere. However there are facts of what occurred and that is what we should be focusing on. The facts given below are documented in detail in the timeline that follows.
Fact:
COVID-19 is a very contagious virus that can have bad effects on certain people mostly with preexisting conditions and morbidity.
Fact:
The Wuhan and Hubei government publicly admitted that they were dishonest (lied) about the virus handling and that they badly mishandled it. They even withheld the degree of the contagiousness from two projects (teams)sent from Beijing. And they did this because of financial and economic motivations.
Fact:
By 19 to 20 January the National government of China became fully aware of the extent and danger of this virus. They did take strong measures in an attempt to contain the virus in the Hubei area and all over China as it had spread to almost all provinces. Taking these actions was correct by the national Chinese government.
Fact:
The National Chinese government however did not also shut down all international travel in and out of China at that time (20 January). That was a big mistake and facilitated the spread across the planet.
Fact:
The World Health Organization knew already on 31 December that there was human-to-human transmission but they did not tell anyone. Subsequently the WHO was aware of various reports originated in China that the virus was contagious and was spread by human-to-human transmission. The WHO still kept reporting that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. Even a WHO scientist reported that there was human-to-human transmission but later that day withdrew that statement. The WHO continued to report no human-to-human transmission up to 23 January knowing it to be different all along.
Fact:
The WHO while being fully aware of human-to-human transmission did not announce an International Health Emergency on 23 January while acknowledging at that point that there was human-to-human transmission. The WHO waited until a week later to do so. However during that week millions of people left China after the Chinese New Year celebrations. After that the WHO continued to advise against travel restrictions and when the US implemented travel restriction on 30 January the WHO criticized the US. The WHOs actions facilitated the spread of the virus.
Fact:
Despite the fact that virus had arrived on US soil the mayor and health commissioner of New York advised their citizens to disregard safety measures and go out as usual.
Fact:
New York became the epicenter with the worst fall out of the virus requiring heroic efforts to contain it.
Fact:
Mayors and counties in the Bay area acted responsibly and so did the governors of California and Washington and implemented safety measures. Both states fared much better and saved much more lives than what occurred in New York. And while the officials involved in those states were Democrats they acted responsibly and disregarded the irresponsible behavior of Democrat Speaker Pelosi that was earlier advocating for people to got to Chinatown in San Francisco and have a good time which was done for political reasons.
Fact:
The Federal government acted responsibly when it implemented travel restrictions from China on 30 January and later other countries. This helped contain the spread of the virus. This is something the national government of China should have done on 20 January, i.e. before millions of people left China after the Lunar holiday on 23 January. The Chinese government instead protested the travel restrictions implemented by the US.
The moral of the story is that people that care about other people also take responsibility for other people. And the larger the sphere of that responsibility is the more constructive their decisions are. Conversely the more people focus on their own financial or political interests with a disregard for others the more destructive their decisions are. This has nothing to do with whether these people are Republicans or Democrats or Americans or Chinese.
In that regard there is another important point. No government or the citizens in any country benefited from this. Not the US and not China and for China they will feel the economic and public relations pain for a good while to come which unfortunately will also negatively affect the Chinese population. And there were many Chinese citizens that took heroic actions in an attempt to avert this disaster. If the Chinese government were smart they would minimally criminally prosecute those officials in Wuhan and from the Hubei provincial government and do it as a jury trial with the citizens of Wuhan sitting on the jury, many of whom have good friends in the US, Europe and elsewhere.
That raises the question “Did anyone benefit from this”.
By sheer necessity billions of dollars had to be invested into the pharmaceutical industry for research, therapeutics, vaccines and other medical equipment. Nothing wrong with that.
However, there is something that should not happen and that is the following:
Many pharmaceutical companies contribute millions of dollars to the World Health Organization. https://www.globalpolicy.org/home/270-general/52830-who-do-financial-contributions-from-pharma-violate-who-guidelines.html The WHO has been dishonest (deliberately lied) and in fact facilitated the spread of the virus. And in no way should it be able to financially benefit from this and the taxpayer dollars that were given to the pharmaceutical industry to solve the disaster the WHO created. For this reason pharmaceutical companies at least in the US should be prohibited to contribute any funds to the WHO for a number of years – essentially a form of sanction.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a non-profit. This non-profit has invested millions of dollars in pharmaceutical stock and it is making a windfall in increased stock value. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1021577629748680000 They have also provided vast amounts to the WHO. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/who-funds-world-health-organization-un-coronavirus-pandemic-covid-trump/ The WHO should not be able to benefit from this and this non-profit should not be allowed to profit from the suffering of millions of citizens and in no way should any of this money make its way to the WHO. For this reason this non-profit should minimally be prohibited from contributing to the WHO for a number of years or it should divest itself of all pharmaceutical stock at the price it had before this pandemic hit the world. In fact this stock should be sold at that price to the US government so the profits benefit the taxpayers.
The timeline follows below